The day before I'm supposed to get a lift and tires put on my Jeep, suddenly I'm second guessing some of my choices. Why buy tires and a lift when you can add more goodies at twice the price, right?

I'm starting with a 2-door Sport, 6-speed, 3.73 gears.

The lift is going to be a 2.5" AEV Dualsport. That variable about this build is set.

The big questions:

1. 33" or 35" tires?

2. Bumpers now, or bumpers later, or stock bumpers but add a tire carrier? --I'd be likely to go with the AEV tubeless front and AEV rear/rear tire carrier.

Concerns:

a. Fuel mileage and the potential need to re-gear with 35's.

b. The weight of a 35" tire on the stock tailgate, or even the weight of a 33" tire with my bike and bike rack.

Senseless musing:

My eyes keep getting bigger and bigger everytime I consider my build options and I question how serious I really am about this. I've scared myself on the trail with tall 31" tires, so I'm sure 33's will be great and 35's will enable even more daring offroad maneuvers. And do I really need bumpers? I'm not an extreme off-roader but they'd be really useful if I ever had to use a high-lift jack on it, and it would be nearly winch-ready when I was ready for one. Plus more options for recovery and places to pull from.

Do I need to tear off the stock bumpers on the trail and wheel to the limits of 33" tires to prove that I need upgraded bumpers and tires? probably not, in fact I'd want to preserve the stock ones so if I ever sold the Jeep I could sell the AEV bits separately if they were still worth something.

Pretend the money was coming out of your bank account and not mine...How would you spend it? Bigger tires and bumpers, or would you put the funds towards something else that I'm not even thinking about?

 

for starters, if youre even considering 35s verses 33's then go 35s.

second, if youre remotely concerned about mpg's, buy a different vehicle and don't own a jeep.

 

If you are going to wheel, run 35's. if you're going to run 35's get a new front bumper.

 

Get the 35s run the stock bumpers while you save for new ones and add the carrier. Or add the carrier and new front and remove the rear. Too many options to choose. It all depends what you want and can afford.

 

That's the foundation of building a jeep if u got stuck at that then it's a very deep fall my friend

 

I was thinking I should have clarified my statement about gas mileage. Bad on me, not on you.

Given the limitations of my Jeep at this point (non-locking diffs, 2.5" lift, standard non-Rubi t-case), what do 35's get me over 33's in terms of functionality? --Versus it being a cosmetic decision that will make other unchanged aspects about the Jeep, like gearing, power, gas mileage, suffer?

 

An extra inch of ground clearance below the axle. Imo for many it's cosmetic. Lockers would do more for capability than the larger tire.

 

Alrighty...rather than face analysis paralysis, this is what I'm going with. Mark this thread if you ever hear me bitching later. Just link me right back to it :P


The Jeep is being dropped off at the shop tonight.

I'm going with 33's (285/70/17). There will be plenty of room for flex with a 2.5" lift, there will be less stress on the drivetrain overall, and I'll retain more power with the 3.73's. The reality is that 90% of the miles on this Jeep will be on-road so that is a factor. I'll revisit tire size when I've run through these, but a 33" tire is the biggest tire I've ever had on a vehicle. The $200 extra in tires would be for vanity at this point and I secretly enjoy the older-school look of a tire that's a bit more tucked under a lifted Jeep. Last, I'm uneasy about wrapping a 315/70/17 on a 7.5" (or 8" when measuring outside edges) rim. My eye is drawn to the wheel width in all the pictures of 315's with stock wheels and while I'm sure running them would be fine, for my vehicle it seems like cheating a bit without springing for a set of new, wider wheels with the correct backspacing. I'm already adding complexity and a potential point of failure by utilizing Spidertrax. That's about as much as I want to screw with the wheel setup on my Jeep even though people have seen good results.

Bumpers... I don't think I'm going to wrong with a front AEV tubeless and the matching rear with tire swing/carrier. There are a lot of bumpers out there that cost less and I'm sure I'm paying an AEV premium, much like when you pay and join the Pentecostal church of Apple when you decide to go Mac versus PC. I enjoy that they've incorporated safety with the airbag crush cans and other crash considerations...reality is, if I'm in a collision where I'm really going to need an airbag, it's going to be on-road. The versatility of the setup is a +1 for me and it's made in the USA. I'm also glad to get the heavy tire/wheel combo off the rear tailgate. It's better value now if I don't have to repair that down the road.

I will need to investigate winches and how I want that to be set up---the bumper will be empty when the Jeep is returned to me.

At this point I don't think I'll have any doubts about the lift or bumpers. Maybe I'll chew myself out at a later date on the tire/wheel setup, but I've also got a lot to learn and a lot of trails to try on, and I'd love to re-run everything I've done so far with a more capable vehicle.

So that's it! For most of you, this is old hat. For the newbs like me that spent many evenings browsing through thousands of pictures, threads, comments, message boards, asking 4x4 friends, etc....this is the build knowledge I've acquired so far. Hopefully it's useful in your decisions. I'll post pics when the dang rain lets up around here.

 

Don't worry about stock wheels and tire width, many have 35x12.5s on stock rims. Since your going with AEV rear bumper, you can install just the carrier with your stock bumper. Then at a later date install the rear AEV bumper. You want to take the weight of the tire off the tailgate.
Make sure that the shop removes & discards the rotor retaining washers when installing the wheel spacers. Important. You don't want to see your wheel go past you on the freeway.